


To Breathe a Lie

by Ketlingr



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character Death, Funeral, M/M, Sad, Sad Tony, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketlingr/pseuds/Ketlingr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shaking with a cold that was not in the air, Loki turned to walk back the way he came.<br/>Above his head, the trees told of a dying fall.<br/>Bronze leaves against a quicksilver sky."</p><p>Loki tries to cope with his true parentage - and fails. His friends and family remember him the way he truly was. Sad. Very sad - I hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Breathe a Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Do NOT read this, if suicide or death in general is a trigger for you.  
> Do NOT read this, if you don't want to cry. 
> 
> This story was inspired by "Broken Crown" by Mumford and Sons.  
> I STRONGLY recommend listening to this song as well as "Honesty" by Fink and "House by the Sea" by Moddi while reading the following story. Please, please listen to the songs while reading.

Bronze leaves against a quicksilver sky.

It had been a while since Loki had walked outside just to walk and take in this wondrous world. Going somewhere, travelling, that was something else. He was not 'going for a walk', he was going for a look, enjoying the silence and the colours.

For how long had he been on this place they called 'Earth' – a name so primitive for a complex place like Midgard. Yet that was what it was, it was where everything came from – all the people Loki had come to know and to like, strangely enough. And when they died, they had themselves put back into the earth, too. It was a curious ritual, so different from how it was done in Asgard. It made sense, Loki thought, for the humans to want to give back to the earth what they had been given.

When he had first come here, the God of Mischief, high on his horse, he had not even tried to understand their petty rituals and traditions, their ways of life. Now, however, he felt like more of one of them than he had ever felt part of anything. Not because he was like them, but simply because they did not know that he was not.

But Loki still knew. And Thor did, he knew that. There was something between him and his brother, more than just distance. Wariness. It was like poison. It was the one thing Loki could never get out of his mind.

Crimson.

Crimson eyes staring back at him from his reflection in a parked car's window. Just an illusion, but one that followed Loki around, day and night. If they knew, if these people only knew what a monster was walking among them. When had it become so cold?

Walking alone as he did, the silence Loki enjoyed so much turned against him. His thoughts echoed in the vast emptiness of his mind and he could have screamed or whispered, it would not have made a difference. There was no rest from the lurking creature inside him, Loki could feel it, always on the brink of breaking free and turning him into something he never asked to be.

Noise, he wanted noise and laughter, bickering or arguments if nothing else, just something to fill his mind. Something, anything. Shaking with a cold that was not in the air, Loki turned to walk back the way he came.

Above his head, the trees told of a dying fall.

Bronze leaves against a quicksilver sky.

\- - -

The air in his lungs froze to a cold and heavy sickness. All colour had drained from his face. The floor was no longer beneath his feet, he was falling.

This could not be.

“No, please, no... don't do this to me, no, no no...”

This could not be.

He sank to his knees, next to the lifeless body. His hands were shaking, he was trembling. There was blood, so much blood and no life left.

_ This could not be.  _

“Please, Loki... don't leave me”, Tony sobbed, drawing his lover to his chest. In Tony's hand there was a note. Loki's note. The one that had brought him here, to find Loki, to help him. To save him.

_ 'The blood of my heart _

_ was never blue.' _

\- - -

There was nothing but the sound of fire and the rush of wind between the people who had gathered. No whisper, no shuffling, no crying. The bonfire offered no heat, it barely managed to drive away the darkness that had gathered to mourn the man who had walked within it for so long.

They were out in the wilderness, far away from the noise of the city, from the people and the lights. Even though they were a small group, there was no intimacy, no comfort, only the bonfire and the wind and the pale, cold body, laid out before them. Loki did not look like he was sleeping. He did not look peaceful. Just dead and lost and alone. And at the same time not much different from when he had been alive.

The steps that disturbed the quiet would have sounded unholy, desecrating the ceremony, had they belonged to a priest. Loki had never had use for religion. He had, however, worshipped his mother, honestly and eternally and unconditionally. And it was her, Frigga, who stepped out of the lines of her family to speak before them.

“'Home is where the heart is', they say.”

Her voice was clear as spring water, so pure that not a trace of mist masked the grief that lay in it. And just like that, her words broke the spell that had held the crowd captive. It seemed to bring them closer together, even though nobody moved. It brought sound and warmth and comfort, yet it made the pain so much worse, because it made all of them realise not only whom they had lost, but also how dearly they missed him.

“After everything he had been through”, Frigga went on, “I am forever grateful for the home Loki has found here on Midgard.” One breathy sob carried through the rows of people, a single sound so heart broken and sad that it made Frigga sway on her feet. Her eyes moved to find Tony Stark in the crowd, supported by the strong arms and protective presence of his friends.

“Loki was never alone. Sadly, that was never something he could see”, she continued, never once looking away from Tony. “Tonight we have gathered to say farewell. To honour my son, I ask of you to you come forth and share your memories with us, share your grief with us, if you can.”

It was Thor who stepped forward first, joining his mother to stand next to the lifeless form of his brother. He had his back to the crowd for a while, looking down on Loki, his shoulders square, like a wall to hide behind, but when he turned around, Thor's face was not that of a warrior or a king, it was that of a boy who had lost his little brother.

“I remember his face, when he told me.” The god's voice was not clear and pure as his mother's. It was the angry howl of a wounded lion. “When he told me about what he had seen in Jotunheim. About what he had concluded and what had been confirmed. I remember the look on his face, stripped of all his courage, of all his confidence and I wanted nothing more than to show him that nothing had changed. He was always – and will always be – my brother.”

Before him, Thor could see Loki's eyes, those sparkling, clever, green eyes that had always followed him around whatever he did. Side by side they had sworn to fight when they were no more than boys.

_ ”Do the Frost Giants still live?” _

Loki had been such a joyful boy... too curious for his own good.

_ “When I'm king” _ , Thor heard his own, boyish voice in his head,  _ ”I'll hunt the monsters down and slay them all.” _

Had Loki remembered those words? Had he heard them in his mind when he had taken his life? Had Thor slain his brother?

“I will miss you, my brother.”  _ Forgive me. _

And Thor stepped away from Loki, grief a grimace on his face, while his father took his place.

“He will be missed”, Odin intoned, as though picking up where Thor had left off. “May he find rest.” The Allfather was regal, unchanged. A chill spread through the rows of the grieving, when for only a brief moment Odin turned to look at the man he had adopted and raised as one of his own – yet never quite that way. In Odin's mind, however, the few seconds he granted himself stretched to an eternity and took him back to remember Loki – not as he had known him, but as he had seen him.

For a long time, Loki had felt like the penitence for all his sins. For all the men and women he had killed and captured, he had saved this unprotected babe and gave him a better life than he would have ever had with his family. He gave him a new family, a better one. A loving one, at most times. And Odin had decided never to reveal Loki's true identity to him or anyone else, so he would never feel different.

But Loki was different on his own accord. It was impossible to raise him the way Odin raised Thor and while he tried, the boy never let him forget that he was not a warrior, not a true prince of Asgard, but a weak child Odin had granted life. And how could Loki not be grateful for that?

All his life he had caused trouble – and now he had gone and left such a mess behind. What way was this to thank his family, his friends, for all the time and all the love they had given him? Ungrateful. Disappointing. Disappointed?

It was only a faint trace of guilt, but it was there, in the back of Odin's mind, as he made his way back. Passing him was Steve Rogers, his arm wrapped firmly around Tony Stark; supporting, leading and protecting in equal parts. When they reached Loki, they stood in silence for a long while, Tony shaking so hard he could barely stand. Finally, they turned to the crowd and Steve was the first to speak, knowing that Tony needed more time.

“When I first met Loki, he was lonely.” Steve's voice was the grave voice of a soldier, strong, for everyone to lean on, holding back his own sorrow to offer comfort to his friends. “And so was I. He felt abandoned and did not belong – and neither did I. This world was alien to us and while we barely shared common ground, the strangeness of this place and time formed a strong bond between us. A bond that became a friendship I will always value highly.”

Steve smiled a sad little smile. One more friend lost. One more voice he was never going to hear again. One more person he had failed to save.

_ 'You're not supposed to do that' _ , he heard Loki chide him and his smile became shaky.  _ 'I broke that, you're not... don't tell Stark it was you just because he won't get mad at you.' _ That fake frown, the thankfulness in those eyes that always seemed so distant and sad. Those long, delicate fingers picking up Tony's toys and breaking them with a strength they did not appear to possess. Never out of spite, always out of too much curiosity, or too little knowledge of the workings of things.

“He couldn't stand me”, rough and raspy and choked. Tony was surprised he could even talk. Or laugh. He laughed. A sad, lost laugh, broken and longing for its counterpart. “Most times, he couldn't... couldn't stand me, really. He would tell me he hated me so often and I would... I would make him say it, because I wanted him to talk to me. Because he was so quiet, even when he spoke. When he joked and talked, he never really said anything.”

But if Loki had said anything, would Tony have listened? How many times had he missed a hint? How many times had he dismissed something carelessly?

“Even now, I don't know what went on in his head. In his... in his stupid head, I don't... know what was going on in there that he found this to be his only way out. I just... I wish I had known. We all do. But nobody did.”

And those were the words that had been on everyone's minds. Now that they had been said, what remained were only silence and pain, the whispers and hollow utterances of the grieving, one by one stepping up front and saying their goodbyes.

In the end, Frigga stood alone again, next to her son, where she had been the whole time. She turned to face him, knelt besides him. Just like a mother would when her child had woken from a nightmare, she spoke to him in a calm voice, so quietly that nobody could hear her words.

“When I told you I had thought it better to hide what you found yourself to be, I never meant this to happen. Loki, my sweet boy, when you told me it was better not to breathe then to breathe a lie, I never thought you meant this to happen.”

Then she stepped back, joining the rows of family and friends and with her magic, she set fire to his lifeless body and lifted it to rest in the flames. Fire to melt the ice. Heat to drive away the cold. Light to fence off the darkness. This was Loki's ceremony, not in Asgard, but on Midgard among the people who had loved him. A common man's funeral, because Loki had never wanted the blood of his heart to be blue.


End file.
